Aircraft - General Atomics MQ-1 Predator

Last crawled date: 1 year, 6 months ago

The Predator system was initially designated the RQ-1 Predator. The 'R' is the Department of Defense designation for reconnaissance and the 'Q' refers to an unmanned aircraft system. The General Atomics MQ-1 Predator is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) which the United States Air Force (USAF) describes as a MALE (medium-altitude, long-endurance) UAV system. It can serve in a reconnaissance role and fire two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles. The aircraft, in use since 1995, has seen combat over Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, and Yemen. The MQ-1 Predator is a system, not just an aircraft. The fully operational system consists of four air vehicles (with sensors), a ground control station (GCS), and a Predator primary satellite link communication suite. The U.S. Air Force considers the Predator unmanned aircraft system (UAS) a 'Tier II' vehicle. Pre-production systems were designated as RQ-1A, while the RQ-1B (not to be confused with the RQ-1 Predator B, which became the MQ-9 Reaper) denotes the baseline production configuration. In 2005, the USAF officially changed the designation to MQ-1 (the 'M' designates multi-role) to reflect its growing use as an armed aircraft. #MQ1_Predator #MQ12_Avenger #MQ1C_Warrior #MQ9_Reaper #RQ1_Predator